About

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This blog is dedicated to the musings of two graduated university students: Hessian and Withteeth. Hessian is a teacher and writer. Withteeth is an organizer, biologist, and stay at home parent. They are working on their dreams of building intentional community, story telling, and educating all those we can. Hessian and Withteeth are both atheists, and much of our blog is dedicated to discussing atheism. They are also both libertarian socialists and Feminists, and a great deal of their writing touches on those issues.

Hessian is a genderqueer (born female but does not identify as a man or a woman) demisexual. Withteeth is a cis (born male, identifies as a man) heterosexual man. They have both have organizing and volunteering experience in LGBTQ, Socialist, Anarchist, and the Canadian Political sphere.

Hessian is in the processes of trying to become a professional writer. They do not talk much about writing here, you can find their work on that subject on their other blog, bdhesse.wordpress.com. They they are not busy being a parent or teaching elementary student, is working towards getting their first book published. Hessian’s ultimate goal is to write full time.

Withteeth, when not organizing locally or taking care of a wee one, is currently working towards building an intentional community (see social ecology meets solar punk) He is still looking for land, and life is in the air, but is connected to various progressive left libertarian groups, attempting to build a better and freer tomorrow.

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266 responses to “About”

I stumbled upon this page while doing research about writing a post about “killing your heroes.” Good post by the way. It drew me to learn more and read your about page.

I think my current business venture may be of interest to one or both of you. I am doing the online marketing for Mangold Leather and http://www.bestleatherstore.net . We make environmentally friendly leather goods that support the ecosystem and our sustainable trade community and our unexploited workers.

Our mission is following the growing trends of Eco fashion and environmental consciousness and restoration. By being champions of environmental justice, we are promoting social justice and equality. We seek to embrace everybody’s uniqueness in our communities rather than conforming to the conformist industrial society.

Hessian, we are in the early stages where we need bloggers like you to write and link about us. I think our venture would make an interesting article for you to write on your blog or potentially publish elsewhere. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Withteeth, you study plant biology. You may be able to grasp the concept of our trade community’s restoration projects. We also create custom leather goods and armor for showcasing and plays. Maybe we could help you make something?

Just found your page, I believe you may have stopped by mine or are following mine, but I’ve spent a good couple of hours reading what you had to say, and you are both very educational and funny, a hard feat to master. Some of your graphics I have saved because they spare me the trouble of trying to explain myself in so many words to others. I used to just call myself a mess as a joke, but it’s more complicated than that. You kept my brain stimulated, and I too am passionate about the LGBT community and our rights and feel strongly about religion. I was raised by an ex-nun, and my brother studied to be a priest, I am an agnostic theist, but your writing reads like articles, and I can’t wait to read more.

Sorry for babbling, but I just wanted to stop by and say hello. Check out my sites if you get a chance: lucieguerre.wordpress.com and noirguerre.wordpress.com

Thanks for liking my blog post “A Lesson in Ironing,” Hessianwithteeth. I like what you are doing. The battle for women’s recognition and complete acceptance; for women not being seen as less than, questionable, and second-best continues, regardless of whether Hilary runs.

Thanks, and to maybe flesh out your last comment a bit more. Who gets elected is a nice single of how things are progressing. A nice anecdote, but they say next to nothing about the actual levels sexism in a society. We don’t win when women get positions of power, we win when reduce sexism to something largely discussed in text books.

Your perspective and blog is fainting and great! Please keep writing on it!!!

Hello Ponderer!

You are a current and valued follower of the Human Ponderings Blog, because of this I want to inform you of some changes happening to the blog…

The Human Ponderings blog has a new home- http://www.humanponderings.com WordPress has served me so well and I am so grateful for the friends, followers, and interactions I have gained there- however by making Human Ponderings into it’s own site I have much more control and access over the blog which will allow Human Ponderings to (hopefully) grow in wonderful new directions!

Thank you so much for your time and if you have a moment I would so appreciate your feedback on the site!!!

Thank you for following “From the Gross to the Subtle”. I am so sorry it took me a while to get over here. I was using my blog to focus on my students–I never considered how many interesting stories there are in the blogiverse. Thank you for sharing your passion and inspiring others to be more open.

First, thank you for visiting my feminism post. Unfortunately, feminism doesn’t seem to be a popular topic (but, as you said in your most recent post about Schnider we are a pop culture and celebrity-oriented culture that–these are my thoughts–tends to avoid deeper thought issues). Anyway, blacksmithing sounds like a lost art; that’s fascinating that one of you would do blacksmithing. Until recently, I had no idea that there is a thriving community of people who (for lack of my knowledge I’ll describe it as such) use old-timey (timey-wimey?!) letter-presses to print pamphlets, books, and such. I’ve been a reader of Hessian/B.D. Hesse for a while, but I’m new to this blog. I wish you both much success; I also wish I had some like-minded atheistic, socialistic, and woo-spurning folks in my (rural U.S.) area. In any case, it’s also nice to meet you With Teeth.

#1. Thanks for the follow on writing out loud
#2. I LOVE your blog. Political writing for the head AND you live in Canada. YOU ARE LIKE MY DREAM BLOGGER 🙂
#3. I look forward to connecting with you out here in the blogosphere.

Hi. Thanks so much for the follow, and welcome! I’m very glad you’ve joined my blogging family. Please visit my Friends…page, if you’d like, and tell my other readers about your blog and its address. Once again, Welcome!

Thank you for bringing your blog to my attention. I think it will be interesting.

Since we can’t edit our posts after submitting them, I hesitated using HTML tags, for fear creating a mess. (blockquote and anchor tags are nice. Also a spell checker might be helpful sans the ability to edit.)

Thank you for stopping by and following my blog. May The Lord Jesus Christ guide you and keep you as He makes you more like Himself each day. May you be filled with His Holy Spirit and used to build His kingdom daily.

Hello, thanks for the follow. I look forward to reading things from your perspective. As a Christian I do enjoy reading other people’s perspectives and thought processes. I like to engage in dialogue without being argumentative. After reading through some of your posts and comments, I hope that you know that not all Christians are closed minded, bigoted and judgmental. A majority are, but there are some of us that respect other’s rights to believe as they wish.

Oh we know. There are several regular commenter here that are Christan and raise the level of discussion. We tend to post about the less savory people though, as we feel it is necessary to point out them as problematic and give good reasons. An attempt to break open the echo chamber.

As for discourse here, so far we’ve only had to band a small handful (not including those whom are never approved) of people, only half of which are Christian. There comes a point where either a person is out right rude, or is incapable of progressing the discussion, but post a lot anyway wasting everyone time as they refuse to meet questions or arguments.

It is an ever fine line, and I always try side of the notions openness, and charitability, but there is always someone who does not want to play nice.

I rather like the general openness of WordPress so far. I’ve changed some of my opinions along the journey that is this blog, and have in turn changed the minds of a few others which I feel is the whole point of this blog and the kinds of discussions we have here. That and learning in general.

Welcome to my blog and for introducing me to yours. How refreshing to find intelligent, articulate discussions of so many topics that all too often get reduced to emotional rants. Keep it up! People need to learn to think.

Thanks for following my blog. I am new to blogging but I have a passion for what I am write about, and from briefly reading a few of your blog posts I can see that they are thoughtful and well written. Cheers!

What can you do to change the world? Join this project to help encourage others to do the right thing and make the world a better place to live. Write a blog post about what you do or could do to help your community, country, or other people become better. If you need some ideas, you can find some on the Change the World project’s main page. When you have finished, please nominate at least one other blogger to answer this challenge and link to their blog. Also, please link back to the person who challenged you. Include this text in your blog post. You are under no obligation to take part in this. Thank you, and have a wonderful day!

Thank you Hessingwithteeth for following my blog. I have responded in kind.

I spent some time looking around your blog and I must say, I’m much impressed with the amount of post/ideas you’ve shared here within the space of less than a year! Thumbs up.

I find your thought-provoking views greatly challenging. That’s a wonderful thing. The ability to impassionately challenge thoughts we hold true and dear is one of the ways we develop as individuals. By allowing the mind view issues independent of prejudices or bias, we can maintain a half-full cup or state of mind, capable of tolerating streams of opinion without losing its own content.

Done in a spirit of love without resentment, hate or defensiveness, we sometimes come in contact with life altering truths but more importantly, we give flesh to the essence of genuine spirituality. In that respect, I’m glad we stumbled on each other’s blog; with both our permission, its an opportunity to learn something new.

I’d like to state categorically that I believe there’s a God and that I completely identify with Jesus and everything he stands for, including the church. But I also believe spirituality goes beyond religion.

All forms of religion are manmade and though designed for the greater purpose of spirituality, progressive thinkers over a period of many generations have, knowingly or unknowingly, diluted that purpose and today, most religion is but an egoic structure of many unconscious followers trapped in a ‘we against them’ mentality.
Right there lays the primary conundrum: religious institutions designed to be unifying has become divisive.

Worse yet, within popular religions, however unintended, individualism is placed ahead of collectivism; a modified version of the ‘we against them’ mindset. Apparently, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. The talks are of collectivism but the acts are of individualism. The ‘sheeps’ aren’t blind & the not-so-docile ones breakaway…

In the Christian religion we know it as “denominations”.

So this is the secondary dilemma seekers of God who go searching for spirituality within religion are confronted with. Such people may never find it because religion is not the destination of spirituality; it only points the way to spirituality.

Either we accept it or not, life is a spiritual journey and it is completely a matter of choice to follow or not follow the direction pointed out by any religion. After all, life is one journey we travel alone without parents, friends or the crowd we’ve come to embrace because we share similar religion.

The journey is lonely and without a guide (whatever that means to us), can give birth to a meaninglessness that grows into an emptiness that nothing finite, people, money and even religion cannot fill. I call it the Bermuda’s triangle along the path of the soul.

Hope is the anchor of the soul and we can joyous because, Jesus, through his death, resurrection and ascension, has restored us to a lively hope. For me, he is a very present guide, help and comforter of the spirit in times of trouble. A very alive companion that assures me I don’t have to go through the journey of life alone; a journey of 40 days doesn’t have to become a journey of 40 years.

I have a story to share that is why I started http://www.heartofdaviid.wordpress.com
I do not know your story or how you arrived at where you are presently, but it’s a story I’ll be much honored for you to share with me. My email is available on my profile at my blog address.

Dear hessianwithteeth – I came to your blog because you stopped by mine – thank you! I have been reading pieces from several of your posts and must say, even as a Christian, I agree with some of your points. Christians, as a whole, seem to be colder, more intolerant of differences, and far too critical/judgmental these days. My view is that “Christianity” means love and kindness, and it is up to God to judge. I will always believe in God, and Jesus as my personal savior, as I have had personal experience too real to refute. However, I respect your thoughts and value your opinions and will continue to read your well-written posts, as you give much to ponder. Fall blessings to you 🙂

Thanks for the follow 🙂 I got caught up reading your post on converting others and wanted to comment as a non christian, not very religious but spiritually connected person until I realised it was from a while ago. Interesting view points and questions. I shall follow you! 🙂

Dear hessianteeth,
The Old Testament was written in sections over many generations, e.g. the exodus from Egypt, after which the earlier history is recorded in the first five books of the O.T., is usually dated about 1400 B.C.. Gradually God revealed himself, leading Israel along a different path to the tribes around them. For example human sacrifice was expressly forbidden, especially the sacrifice of children to the fire god Molech. “An eye for an eye,” while it does not fit our Christian-based culture today, was a big step forward at the time (Exodus 21:24) and strictly limited the reparation one could exact for injury, unlike the on-going, escalating blood feuds which are still part of the culture of many tribes today.
The horde of Israelites who came out of Egypt had been slaves for about 200 years and had no experience of self-government. They were given 10 rules on which to build their society (see Exodus 20). By the time Jesus was born the religious leaders had expanded the list of rules to more than 2000, starting each with “God says…”. As no one could keep, or even remember them all, the people never felt forgiven and free. Unfortunately, religious leaders do the same thing to Christianity. Adding church rules to the basic gospel. When Jesus was asked for the most important commandments (Matthew 22:36-40) he quoted two which dated right back to the exodus and which summed up the 10 commandments: 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment (Deuteronomy 6:5). And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18). 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus preached two requirements for eternal life (Mark 1:14-15). ‘Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel”.’ Two rules again – Be honest about my sins and failures and my inability to be as good as I want to be deep down; believe that Christ paid for my sins on the cross, and accept God’s forgiveness as a gift, not as something we earn or build up brownie points towards. (See my blog “God’s Dilemma”). Where the legalistic minds get stuck is on the basic principle of Christianity. it is a personal relationship, not a set of rules. It’s a relationship based on love, God’s love for us in the first place and our free-will offering of love in return as we get to know Him better.
So persevere with your search, though I would suggest the gospels and letters of the New Testament would get you to the end of the rainbow a lot quicker than ploughing through centuries of Jewish history. God bless you – He already loves you dearly.

Hey guys thanks for following my blog! You have some interesting posts on here. I have the book Mere Christianity and I’ve been meaning to read it. You make some interesting points. Also, I’m glad that it appears you understood my most recent post. I can see you guys are supporters of the LGBT community and I was worried members and fellow supporters of that community wouldn’t understand my message. Anyway, thank you again.

Wow! So glad you found me and followed my blog, because now I am following YOU!!! Your posts are so amazing and insightful – exactly what I needed to find right now as I work on my talk about feminism. Thanks so much!!!! ^.^ I’ll be perusing your blog often, methinks.

Thank you for finding my blog. What a great scope of subjects! I’m impressed and will follow you. You have something different all the time. We all are parts of so many different subject areas. I think in writing jargon that would be a well-rounded character…and we are all characters in a play…so says Shakespeare.

Hi. Thanks for stopping by and following my blog. I wanted to send a private message to you but do not see a way to do this on your blog. If you are interested in having a dialog about the Bible I would love spend some time answering some of your questions you have posed in some of your posts. If you are interested let me know. I may not have a lot of time to post but I can give some time. visit my site at untothehills.net to message me.

Let’s face it. Every one; the preacher, the politician, the atheist, even our blogs are wanting to convert other’s to our way of thinking. So, having said that, let me just thank you for following my blog. – Happy thoughts and aloha – pjs.

You are very kind. Any more pieces with the wit ( but a wee bit less profane) of the Leviticus piece would be a pleasure to put up on my blog! How about the plight of Job! Talk about unfair: the most righteous man on earth getting handed over to Satan for a few rounds…!

Hi there! I just wanted to stop by and say I’m glad you enjoyed my blog and decided to follow. I’ve been checking you out Hessian, and your blog is very diverse and interesting. I’m looking forward to reading more. 🙂

Thank you both for stopping by and the follow. I’ll certainly be coming by from time to time to see what you’re doing — although from my first look it seems you two are doing just fine. Keep up the good work!

Hello & thanks for following my blog, and welcome. After reading your post on Leviticus, I’d have to say that there are increasing numbers of us who are thinking that the Supernal God and Father/Mother of Spirits – all of us – Whom Jesus our “elder brother” invites us to call “Our Father” may not be the demigod Jehovah of the old testament.

The Jesus I have come to know is far different than that, a Being of pure love. I don’t know anything about you, but if I may I’d like to recommend a book called The Orthodox Christian Conspiracy, by Joseph P. Macchio, with Stephen Macchio . It’s a very eye opening, well researched, and informative read, and it may hold some answers for you. It presents a far different beginning to the earliest days of the Christian movement than what’s been laid down since the 4th century by the party line of Roman Catholicism and everything that followed (Protestantism included, etc.) – after the Roman Emperor Constantine made his own brand of Christianity the state religion, along with the Council of Nicaea in the early 4th century.

I feel compelled to also mention that, if you have any familiarity with the New Testament, you may recall that Jesus Himself overturned the tables of the moneychangers who were, among other things, selling sacrificial animals in the temple at Jerusalem. He reminded these “banksters” that the house of God is a house of prayer, but that they had turned it into a den of thieves. Apparently these “ritual abuses” were also disgusting to Him as well. Such practices stood in the way of the knowledge of the true God as our loving Father, since they kept people subjected and imprisoned in fear. St. John, the disciple closest to Jesus, informs us that God is love, and (perfect) Love casts out fear. It doesn’t create or perpetuate it!

Jesus also said that if we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. If this is so, then we see God in His true form – Love. This is Who Jesus came to reveal as our true Source, and to call us back to fellowship with Him. The spiritual journey can be one where we experience great ambivalence and questioning, and is a long one where Jesus invites us to continually keep on asking, seeking, and knocking to know God – promising that if we truly seek to know we will receive what we ask.

But above all, “For this reason,” the Apostle Paul prays, “I bow my knees before the Father… that He would grant you… to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (From Ephesians 3).

II’m confused as to why you decide to follow my blog! You seem to dislike God and His Word (bible) while I love God. My point is…I don’t see if we have anything in common. I read your post about Leviticus. I don’t agree nor do I expect to convert you because to be convinced of anything one must first be open to its possibility. Here’s my email: rapsta24 at yahoo dot com
If you have questions about Leviticus and God. I’ll do my best to explain. My mission: to teach people about God and His bible fully and truthfully regardless if a person believes in Jesus or not.

Thank you so much for visiting and following my blog. I hope that you enjoy and find quality content there. I am now following you also and look forward to getting better acquainted with your work! Have a great evening! 🙂

Good of you to follow my blog; I have no idea who you guys or gals are, but it’s nice to have people coming by again and taking a look at what I’m up to, particularly the Tolerance Inc. campaign to stop bullying. Many thanks, Tonya.

If you are looking for a community of like-minded people: questioning, respecting, searching, (and mostly atheists) within a faith community…have you looked at Unitarians? http://www.cuc.ca will find you a congregation. http://www.uua.org will give you more background and resources.

It’s refreshing your blog supports both science & philosophy. I suppose if we didn’t have technology to help with the advancement of science, we might all be satisfied with philosophy. For me, philosophy are the thoughts that explain our world in the most humanistic manner. I’m happy you’re following my blog.

To be anti-philosophy, it to many ways to be anti-science. Science is a very powerful and well developed part of philosophy. And does deserve special recognition for how we’ve used the scientific method to, however it’s still based on logic which is much the purview of philosophy. Certainly science can help refine just about anything which we might be able to convince and make use of, but philosophy and it usefulness are not dead.. We still need to examine or epistemology, how we think of reality in meta physics, logic is the basis much of the most productive system we have, and morality is still comfortably in the realm of philosophy. We still have much to learn and there is no reason to toss something out because it can move into the more wibbily wobbily realm outside of hard science.

Thanks for your comment and for stopping by! Might we see an end to this anti-philosophy silliness.

Should you go through and read the whole reply you may come to see feminism in a different light, perhaps not, but these comments seem clear that you haven’t yet taken the time to read much of us yet. I suggest doing so before forming opinion on us or how we will react to you.

Just wanted to thank-you for following my blog, means a lot as I earn a lot of back-lash for writing what I do, goes against the grain of who I am, according to my ‘community’. Been scrolling through yours, nice blog you got here! 🙂

Hey there, thanks for checking out the site & for the follow! I just read your post, “Interfaith Dialogue” – I liked your idea about learning to understand others and encouraging others to understand you. Beautiful ideas.
-Christa

I’m reading your captivating articles with interest and I’m impressed by your way of thinking and, of course, the written expression of your thoughts and believes. Thank you so much for following my blog, it means so much to me and I’m honored to know you (both) are reading.
Best wishes,
Carissa

Real atheists aren’t obsessed with religion; we’ve moved on. You can’t cure a religious person. It’s kind of cruel to keep yammering at them when their brains are stuck in magical thinking. They can’t understand you. Would you keep yelling loudly at a deaf person? It’s futile. MOVE ON.

“Real atheists”? Why don’t you try reading into your fallacies? Your no-true-Scotsman is useless here.
We aren’t trying to convert anyone. We don’t care if they believe so long as they aren’t harming anyone in the process. And we aren’t obsessed with religion either. We’re interested in it. We like to know why others believe. Is that a crime now? In case you haven’t noticed (which I doubt you have), we right about whatever catches our fancy. We don’t write about religion alone.
So why don’t you quite being an arrogant ass and move on yourself?

[…] Hessian With Teeth Besides being an awesome blog name, these two uni students have a lot to say. A blog mostly about exploring faith and encouraging open conversation between those with or without faith. I had never heard of interfaith before reading this blog and I’m glad I know about it now. They talk about a lot of things I’m afraid to broach, so for that, they are inspiring. […]

Greetings friends, Just wanted to say thank you for following my blog as it encourages me to continue. Some of my pieces cause much contemplation while my latest one allows for all the possibilities.
Keep up the good work!
LOL
Barra

Thanks for following my blog. I must say that yours looks interesting too. Your list of topics seems to have an “one of these things is different” feel to it with the chain mail and blacksmithing. I like that.

Thanks for following my blog. It’s great to find someone actually reading the Bible and Christian books and asking questions. Hope you find some answers on my blog. BTW regarding the chain mail, you might be interested in my medieval history blog http://www.annmariethomas.me.uk/

Hi there! Was just about to exit WordPress when I saw the plus sign light up – wonderful to have you stop by and follow! 🙂 Thank you for honoring us so and we pray your day/afternoon/evening has been made brighter by something you’ve read.

I appreciate you following my blog Faith and Footsteps. After perusing your writings, I’m encouraged to finally hear from an atheist who’s not interested in bashing Christians for a differing belief system. I hope you enjoy my posts and look forward to an open dialogue with you.

Thank you for following my blog! I like the niche you have carved out for yourselves with your unique blog, I look forward to learning more. I cannot say I am terribly knowledgeable about blacksmithing or botany.

Oh wow, for once, a blog that followed mine actually has a relevant or related focus as my own (rather than “How I Became Rich from Blogging” or “How to Make/Market Your Blog to Make Money” or “[insert extremist political ideology here]”). If I weren’t dying for a ciggie at the moment on top of being tired and unable to focus, I’d actually read through your blog. Some of the post titles look interesting. Kudos and good luck or whatever applies for the situation at hand.

Lol. The cat’s pajamas thing is courtacy of wordpress. I don’t quite understand it myself. As for hessianwithteeth, we combined our online usernames. I go by hessian online, usually, and my partner goes by withteeth. At least when we game.

Hello guys (and/or gals)! Just wanted to tip my hat for the follow and say that I quite like what you’re doing here. Just a question though, can we know more about the two of you posting here or do you want to keep it anonymous?